Global without Borders’

Language policy and the concerted cultivation of multilingualism

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12738658
AutoresGiselle Del Carmen Martinez Negrette (0000-0001-7029-9237, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, autor correspondente), Tanya Espinosa Cordoba (0000-0003-2156-1272, Anderson University - South Carolina), Stephanie C Sanders-Smith (0000-0002-1611-6142, University of Illinois System)
Ano2024
Volume22
Fascículo3
Páginas1071-1090
Data de publicação2024-07-30
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Journal of Multilingualism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1479-0718 • E-ISSN: 1747-7530
EditoraRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14790718.2024.2383738
OpenAlexW4401113045
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas32

Shifts toward an interconnected global economy have raised concerns among middle- and upper-middle-class parents about the role of multilingualism and multiculturalism in child-rearing. Affluent parents have been previously recognized as 'cultivating' childhood experiences to promote competitiveness in the professional sphere (Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. University of California Press. ). The cultivation of multiple languages and a multicultural stance has, as the global economy has broadened, become part of 'good parenting' for many. Against this background, this qualitative study uses a language policy theory (Spolsky, B. (2007). Towards a theory of language policy. 22 (1), https://repository.upenn.edu/wpel/vol22/iss1/1) to examine beliefs, practices, and behaviors of parents of children enrolled in an early childhood program at a private international school in Hong Kong. The findings show how the focal parents created and enacted their own language policy based on their beliefs about languages, the practices they carried out, and their management of their children's multilingualism, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study highlights contemporary tensions between ideologies and practices of language in present-day multilingual and multicultural school settings; in addition, it expands the existing research on language policy and parental engagement by providing a nuanced analysis of how social actors devise ways to manage and support the complex process of language learning, even under dire conditions

Ideology · Language policy · Multiculturalism · Multilingualism · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Multilingual Education and Policy · Parental Involvement in Education